American McGee Wants Upset SimCity Gamers to "Relax"

[wulfgar_red]

CDP_RED/GOG don't need to tell their customers to relax. they are relaxed. no DRM and no multilayer didn't hurt them. and don't treat their customers like they are to blame for their failures and need to STFU

 

[Fordo]

I don't follow this industry enough to know who some guy named American McGee is, or who the hell calls themselves, 'American' for their first name.

I'm a bit torn, and unsure what point he's trying to make.

If there's any point to his baffling, 'it's not you, it's the air conditioner' counter to gamers who place the blame on EA for their handling of this issue... it's the part where he mentions there's too much fire and brimstone TALK.

If you want change, stop buying games that have such silly, unnecessary requirements like this always online for a single player game. Or, like Jimquisition mentioned... wait 2 weeks or so. I'm sure executives don't follow these games far after release numbers come out. The incentive for anyone or any business to innovate or change their business model is low when they still make big dollars with releases like this.

On the other hand, if he's trying to say gamers need to take a step back and care a bit LESS about the industry and find some other hobbies to take up their time, I would argue if gamers actually followed this advice and were not so rabid about certain new titles with a number 3 or 4+ next to the name and didn't devour them so quickly, and with such vigor... the industry would not be able to release the repetitive samey games each developer seems to get away with.

Call of Duty, Madden, Modern Warfare, Crysis, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, hell even Starcraft II feels a lot like Diablo III sometimes.

Perhaps that would require developers to focus more on games that really offer a signature experience that really draws players in a way that they have not experienced in the past.

 

[grigjd3]

He really stepped out in front of this train?

 

[Akexi]

So according to American, we shouldn't complain that we paid $60 to $80 for a product that was nonfunctional from day one and still has functions of the full game disabled? That's absolutely the worst advice someone could give. If there is a problem with something you bought for a decent amount, you damn well complain about it. Jim Sterling said it best "You are not a dog, you do not need to behave like one". After this comment, American shouldn't be surprised that his upcoming kickstarter for Alice 3 has difficulties.

 

[faefrost]

I have never understood why gaming news sites hang on every word this dude says? Has anyone ever actually played any games that he himself came up with? Alice was not really that well received and was a sort of Tim Burton acid trip. Everything else has been bargain bin shelf Warner's or was cancelled over finances. He gets by by being opinionated and sucking up to stupid Goth nitwits. I think some above said it best. If you want to step between a shitstorm argument between the customer and the producer, at a minimum be a viable and credible producer. Otherwise please just shut up.

 

[JaredXE]

China McGee needs to shut the hell up. Do I think EA and Blizzard WANTED things to go wrong, no. But they sure as fuck should have seen it coming, as a lot of gamers did. Seriously, I think fan reaction to SimCity was UNDERWHELMING compared to what it could have been and what EA deserved for fucking players over with never-gonna-work DRM.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Welp, it's become abundantly clear that McGee has become little more than an industry apologist, at this point. Did EA threaten to not produce his next game if he didn't agree to be their mouthpiece? Given that they literally hired people to write bogus positive reviews of the game a few weeks ago, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

[faefrost]

I find his whole spiel to be quite humorous. Gamers didn't turn this into WWIII, the publishers did when they decided that protecting against piracy was more important than the user experience of their paying customers. Why is it so hard for publishers and developers to understand that if you're going to cram DRM into your games, and that DRM causes your game to be unplayable, the people who paid you have good reason to be pissed.

And the reason we have Draconian DRM schemes protecting games these days in the first place is because "gamers" like to not pay for their games, like at all. Just look at Crysis, which was torrented more times from Pirate Bay then it sold actual copies. I am not going to defend EA or always-online DRM, but we should at least be clear with the fact that this kind of respectlessness fully extends both ways. Whoever started it is kind of irrelevant, what matters is that as long as a majority of PC gamers aren't willing to pay for their games and are ready to obtain them illegally instead, we'll be seeing draconian DRM solutions, simply because the developers and producers want to get paid for the product they made.

It isn't that "gamers don't like to pay for games". You may have noticed some services that have made billions of dollars on the exact opposite argument. Steam and ITunes being the big ones. The key is to price your product where the purchaser finds value and is willing to scream "shut up and take my money!" $69 for a non functional triple A title is not this place. Quite frankly Fuck DRM, not because I think it is wrong for producers to expect to get paid for their product, but because I think it is a poor economic and financial solution to the problem. The secret to people not stealing your product is to lower the barrier of legitimate entry. Make it easier and less painful to buy a legit copy then it is to jump through hoops pirating it. Part of that is setting the price at a point where the consumer finds value for what they are getting. THAT is the true point of balance. That is what Mr. McGee completely fails to realize. And big producers like EA just can never grasp.

Simple Math. If instead of putting in place.heir complex, clubby, overhead extensive and ongoing lay expensive always online model, EA had simply made a single player game with online matching, and put it up on Steam and Origin for $29 they would have made far more money net, with almost no piracy. People pay for what they perceive as value. They only pirate that which is already perceived as valueless.

 

[kajinking]

And off to then side is EA gesturing and going

"Stop talking! Stop talking! People are staring to forget! Stop Talking!"

Oh and BWT if it's not that big of an issue some places are already starting to drop the price to 33% off roughly three weeks after release.

 

[Atmos Duality]

That being said, developers and publishers face extinction if they can?t solve the piracy issue while at the same time addressing the demands gamers make regarding connected and accessible games (I see these two things going together).

So that's it then? "Always-Online" or "Extinction"? Bullshit.
Steam and GoG aren't always-online, they must be going extinct.

Because seriously, the number of hoops and legal entanglements the consumer has to jump through with Always-Online, just to play a fucking video game, is already nuts.

The only thing you're really doing with Always-Online is adding another major point of failure.
In fact, objectively, Always-Online is retrograde in design; the consumer used to have a say in the matter, now they don't. So much for "evolution".

Being in China all I see are companies who have solved these issues and customers who are happy with the results. Western developers have some obstacles to overcome before they get there.

The Chinese gaming market is not something I'd be bragging about, and not something I'd want to emulate.
Unless you want every game to be cut-rate social garbage or an MMO.

Chinese server companies have a lot of practice with MMOs because their market was EXTREMELY limited and controlled via government regulation (like the console ban). Their customers are happy with that because they had NO OTHER CHOICE OF GAMES. (save for bootleg markets, like the R4, but most consoles were NOT cracked and are by far the exception and not the norm in China)

The problem: NOT EVERY GAME WORKS AS AN MMO. Not every game can be justified as a service, either.
As we're discovering, not many genres are capable of supporting the MMO model, and those that are forced into the mold always, ALWAYS lose something in the process.

Oh, but I understand. The security and rights of the Publishers are more important than anything...including the games they supposedly exist to fucking make. *rolls eyes*

"People need to relax a little and stop turning everything into World War III - Gamers vs. The Man. There are no winners in that scenario.

Trust is a two way street.
I want to do business and trust these companies, but the biggest of the bunch have proven, repeatedly, that they are perfectly willing to betray gamer trust, compromise gameplay, or twist the customer's arm for a quick buck at no added value.

If they want my money, they need my trust, and there is absolutely no reason we shouldn't get angry when they're caught deliberately exploiting that trust.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Spoiler

Seriously. I'm freaking waiting.

Couldn't find the source for Crysis (still looking). So how about the 4-5 pirates per paying consumer of the Witcher 2? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114429-The-Witcher-2-Pirated-Roughly-4-5-Million-Times-Says-Dev] or the list that shows that Crysis 2 was pirated almost 4 million times from one site alone during the first year? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.336755-TorrentFreak-Reveals-Top-Pirated-Games-of-2011] You can put that number of pirated copies of Crysis 2 in comparsion to the ~640,000 copies it has sold. [http://www.vgchartz.com/game/35003/crysis-2/] Comparing the Torrent Freak number to the VG chartz numbers also tells us that for every gamer who legally purchased Crysis 2 during its' first year another 9 downloaded it via a BitTorrent affiliate.

So yeah, I think my point totally stands.

 

[Griffolion]

*Sigh* Where do I begin?

"Just because you've given a restaurant your business doesn't entitle you to throwing molten cheese fries in your waiter's face if your margarita comes out frozen instead of on the rocks."

No, not the waiter, that's why people aren't specifically pissed at Origin. People were pissed at EA proper and its mis-management of servers (what could be called the "chef" for the sake of this analogy). The waiter isn't to blame, but I'm entitled to throw my frozen pizza at the chef for insulting me with his pile of garbage.

McGee continued. "People need to relax a little and stop turning everything into World War III - Gamers vs. The Man. There are no winners in that scenario."

"Those who make non-violent revolution possible, make violent revolution inevitable" - Martin Luther King Jr.

While not wholly applicable as I don't see the tanks rolling out, it bears some semblance. Gamers, for a long time now, have been expressing dissatisfaction with a number of practices in the industry (mostly perpetrated by EA) that lead to reduced quality of games (ala homogenisation) or just failed launches due to sheer incompetency (Sim City, Diablo 3 etc). The companies aren't listening to our reasonable, calm demands for better. Sure we get some idiots who spew nothing but vitriol in forums, but there are individuals who put forward their cases and desires very well, and do represent us as a whole. So if the likes of EA won't listen to us on the back of bullshit like Sim City, homogenised crap like Dead Space 3, cash cow milking like the upcoming BF4, then we're going to have to resort to more drastic actions to get ourselves across.

You need us, game industry. Treat us well, and find yourselves rich people as we freely give our money for products and services we feel treat us like adult human beings. Not walking wallets, devoid of feeling or opinion.

American McGee, we kindly ask you never ever say anything again. Literally.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

"Just because you've given a restaurant your business doesn't entitle you to throwing molten cheese fries in your waiter's face if your margarita comes out frozen instead of on the rocks," McGee continued. "People need to relax a little and stop turning everything into World War III - Gamers vs. The Man. There are no winners in that scenario."

Well that would be extreme reaction but none the less I would feel that the restaurant shouldn't charge money for shoddy food, nor should the customer feel obligated to pay for that food. And certainly the customer should have every right to vocally complain about the shoddy service of that restaurant, plus a good restaurant would immediately fix such a mess.

It's not starting World War III, it's a basic consumer reaction to shoddy products and services. Don't provide a shoddy service if you don't want to be mauled by consumers.

On a side note, I wonder if devs are aware of consumer interest shows like the BBC's Watchdog, if not, they might be in for a shock.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Ooh, I want to stretch his metaphor too!

It's more like the waiter brings you your margaritas, then stands next to you and slaps it out of your hand every time you try to take a sip. And then when you're like "what the hell?" he just stays completely silent and doesn't respond. And this goes on for weeks.

 

[fwiffo]

Are we allowed to hate these games cuz they suck? Is that ok mr mgee? Between the shitty itemization of D3 and the broken traffic of simcity, I think these games just plain suck. Maybe they are "fixable", but that should be done before launch (within reason).

 

[grey_space]

The guy would want to fuck off for himself.

I really don't get too upset about always online DRM or suchlike since I just don't buy the product.

But this guys attitude just really annoyed me.

To use his metaphor, the customers ordered the food and then just didn't fucking get the food at all.

And when they did in some cases it was a pile of fetid shite.

Gordon Ramsay would have their balls for a service like that.


I mean who is this guy to talk to his potential customers in that way?

Edited for poor word choice and spelling

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

American McGee has obviously committed to refunding every dissatisfied Sim City purchaser the $60 they shelled out.

It's funny that everywhere but here in the US (and those places we've bullied into compliance) they've recognized that a pirated copy does not equate to a lost sale (and in fact, sometimes the reverse). DRM is less about I want my money and more about I think it's wrong that you have that.

238U

 

[Machine Man 1992]

If we don't ***** and complain, then it won't get fixed.

We all knew that DRM would fuck over the customers and EA did it anyway, because of their compulsive need to control their product post purchase.

And while I'm at it, we never asked for this bullshit. Publishers inflicted this on us.

 

[geizr]

You know what? He's right. We shouldn't get mad. We should just no longer give game developers our money. That way, we can all be happy. We won't have to have a shitty game experience because we'll be doing something else with our money that's much more entertaining, and game developers won't have to worry about bad PR because no one will have bought their games to talk about them. Sounds like win-win to me.

 

[l3o2828]

Theres no reason to comment on how wrong i think Mcgee is, because people already did it for me.

Let's comment on something else shall we?:

...THATS HOW MCGEE LOOKS LIKE?! Jesus...THIS is the designer of The Alice games...One expects them to look somewhat dorky just because ...but nope, it seems like all famous developers are atleast somewhat attractive.